Awakening
by TheKruemel
Summary: Allen finds himself in a world he doesn't know or can't remember. All he can see is fire and crimson and the cruelty that lies behind the cloud of smoke. Warnings for deaths, blood and gore.


**Read and find out.**

**Warnings for character death, blood and gore**

**Disclaimer: I do not own D. Gray-Man**

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When Allen opened his eyes there was nothing but darkness. His lids felt heavy and his face was numb. He blinked a few times, trying to discern something within the darkness. Even when his eyes seemed to get used to the lack of light everything seemed to be covered in a layer of dark gray so it was hard to actually distinguish his surroundings. Allen tried to lift his head and move his limbs, but his body wouldn't respond and he could hardly feel his muscles when he tried to flex them. Since neither moving nor seeing worked Allen closed his eyes again, concentrating on his other senses. Yet even his nose and ears seemed to be numb. There was some faint rushing sound accompanied by a distant sizzling or cracking. Because of his general drowsiness his brain couldn't relate the sounds to anything. Allen's initially stunned nose however began to tickle and his eyes shot open again when he picked up the scent of smoke.

Slowly feeling returned to his body. The numbness in his face and in his limbs was replaced by a burning sensation as if thousands and thousands of tiny needles were pricking his skin. He was lying on his back, pebble pressing uncomfortably against his body. His once tired eyes could now clearly see a crimson sky with heavy clouds dimming out any natural light there might have been. It was hard to discern whether it was day or night. Everything was bathed in a baneful red. Again Allen tried to move his body when the feeling and strength had finally returned to his muscles, rolling onto his side. When he breathed in the thick air he began to cough, raising dust in front of his face. The dust stung in his nose and eyes so the latters closed automatically. His throat felt terribly dry when he swallowed some of the dispersed powder, again making him cough violently. He tried to keep his face away from the dusty ground as much as possible so he could breathe without getting more of the particles into his lungs and to stop the coughing fit. It seemed as though everything around him was dry and deserted. He could still smell the smoke hanging in the air like a thick blanket and with his hearing becoming clearer he realized the cracking and sizzling sounds he'd heard before, but couldn't correlate were the sounds of fire.

Once his coughing subsided Allen willed himself to breathe evenly, ignoring the scorching feeling in his throat and chest each intake of air was accompanied by. He gathered his strength to roll onto his stomach, again dispersing dust when he exhaled. While leaning onto his hands he tried to get onto his knees and finally into an upright position, getting dizzy during the process. Willing himself to stand straight despite the dizziness Allen took a look around. By now he could see his nearby surroundings clearly although he couldn't depict any light sources. Whatever light there was that kept away the complete blackness was dim. Through the smoke that hung in the air like a veil he could see several small fires in the vicinity. He tried to rack his brain for information. He didn't know where he was and he couldn't remember how he had ended up on the ground. His clothes were tattered and stained by dirt and blood from numerous minor scratches and wounds almost covering his entire body. His left arm hurt and felt heavier than his right one as if he had carried a far too heavy weight with it. It looked as though he had survived the apocalypse or a great battle, but he couldn't remember a thing. The ground crunched under his feet when he took a few steps forward. Wherever he was, the place was dead. There were no living plants, only the shades of dead trees and sear shrubs. A gentle breeze blew away the curtain of smoke surrounding him, making it easier for Allen to see farther than a few meters. He kept on walking in hope of finding someone or _something_ that would help him to get out of that deserted place. Or at least to help him remember how and why he had gotten there. In a dusky place like this and with his lack of memory Allen's sense of time was as absent as his sense of direction at any given time. Since the sky that was heavy with clouds and fog didn't provide any help in finding the right direction he tried to memorize some peculiar trees or where exactly the fires where to keep himself from moving in a circle. He didn't need to walk for long though when his eyes caught a vague shape at the root of a rotten tree. The tree itself was shrouded by smoke so he could see any details. Allen walked closer despite his fatigue and the still burning feeling in his lungs and on his skin to get a better look, hope swelling in his aching chest. What he saw under the tree though made him stop dead in his tracks.

Lying on one side with closed eyes and an unhealthy pale complexion was Lenalee, her face mostly covered by dirt and tangled strands of hair. Her clothes were tattered and bloodstained, her feet bare. Her left leg was in a strangely unnatural position, indicating it to be broken. Allen couldn't breathe, his blood froze despite the heat of the fires that hung heavy in the air. His brain was unable to process what was happening around him. Tears stung in his eyes, but he couldn't move them away from Lenalee's lifeless form. He was petrified.  
Suddenly the foggy veil that accompanied this desolate place disappeared altogether, revealing a dead and devastated plain to Allen's wide, watery eyes. More bodies were lying on the ground, pallid, bloodied, motionless. Most of them were wearing dark clothes, covered in red dust. Allen let out a shuddering breath as he began to recognize one corpse after the other. Slowly he went passed the tree and onto what looked like a battlefield after a massacre. Blood covered most of the ground, mirroring the crimson clouds.

Only a few feet away from the tree he saw Lavi lying on his back, one hand outstretched and fingers curled as if he'd been holding something that wasn't there anymore. His other hand, the arm, part of his torso, neck and face were black and raw, the flesh burned. The remainings of the red-head's eyepatch were hardly distinguishable from his marred skin. Allen closed his eyes, unable to look at the pained expression that was burned into Lavi's dead face.  
Not far from Lavi was Bookman's body. His clothes were perforated, his face and head lined with tiny round scratches.

Allen wandered on, his shoulders sagging with each step he took between the dead bodies. He still didn't know how he had gotten there, what exactly had happened or why he was still alive. He cringed when he saw Noise Marie face down on the ground. Two bloody trails ran from the sides of his head where his ears should have been down his cheeks and neck and onto the sandy soil. Next to him was Miranda, her back bent over a rock, dead bloodshot eyes staring at the sky. Allen could tell she'd been crying before she died because of the clean streaks across her otherwise dirty cheeks.

With each step it got harder for him to breathe, his chest felt as though it was constricted by chains that tightened with every move. His knees became weak as he began panting. Through blurred eyes he saw Crowley partially burried under rubble, his lifeless body wrapped in a dark, but dirty cloak, the white strand of hair almost completely red from a wound on his forehead. A thin trail of blood ran down the side of his face to his dislocated jaw, his teeth appearing frail.

Tears began to slip from his eyes as he dragged his feet over the dusty ground, leaving scrubs marks behind his path. More bodies lined his way, but he couldn't see them clearly anymore. A man in a white cloak with some kind of spear piercing his back. Other men in light and dark robes, their bodies beaten and flayed. It was all a blurr of black, white and beige on a carpet of red. He was sobbing now, his chest still painfully tight so he couldn't breathe properly. Finally his feet gave out under him and he stumbled to the ground, falling onto his knees. Allen gripped his head as more tears fell from his burning eyes, flowing down his dirty cheeks. His heart beat violently against his ribcage, the hammering echoing loudly within his head as though it wanted to split his skull. He slammed one hand onto the ground, burying his nails in the dust in a desperate attempt to get some grip on reality.

He couldn't think straight when everything and everyone around him was dead. When the smell of smoke, burned flesh and decay assaulted his nostrils. When he couldn't get the pained expressions of his friends out of his mind. Why couldn't he remember? Why couldn't he help them?  
More tears flowed down his cheeks and fell onto the dry ground, creating dark spots on the deserted soil. This had to be a nightmare, it just had to be. Through his panting Allen tried to gasp for air, trying to break the imaginary chains around his torso. A loud cry tore itself from his throat, consisting of pure despair and pain.  
How could he've been unable to help even one of them? He couldn't get the images out of his head. He was sitting in the middle of his friends corpses. They were all dead.

_Lenalee_

He couldn't protect them.

_Lavi_

Was it his fault?

_Marie, Miranda, Crowley_

Where had he been during the battle?

_Kanda..._

Allen's sobbing subsided for a moment. There was no cruel image of Kanda's dead body in his mind. Did he oversee him in his apathetic state? Carefully he looked around, biting his lower lip to quell his sobs and to stop his tears when his eyes wandered over the bloody corpses. He struggled to take a closer look at the bodies, not wanting to be haunted by every horrid detail afterwards. But there was no sign of the one he was looking for.  
Maybe Kanda had survived. Maybe he had been away during the battle just like Allen. Maybe he was lying somewhere with as much memories as Allen. Maybe he was also searching for him, for the others, for someone. Maybe when he kept on walking he could find him. The chains around his chest seemed to loosen when Allen allowed himself a little bit of hope upon the perspective of finding the bad-tempered Japanese youth alive. Slowly he straightened up, his knees still weak from the overall exhausting experience, but he managed to stand on his feet without problems. Casting one last glance over the battlefield Allen silently bowed his head. Then he turned around and stepped away from the corpses, heading into nowhere. The sizzling sounds of the fires began to die away, the veil of smoke closing behind him, engulfing his friends corpses into thick fog again. The fatigue had no left his body, nor had the piercing and pricking feeling on his skin. His lungs and chest still ached with every intake of the dust-dry air and his eyes stung from both his tears and the dry atmosphere, but it didn't matter.  
He had to find Kanda. He just had to. It was his only option, the only perspective. It was too late to help them, but maybe it wasn't too late to help Kanda...

or to let Kanda help him...

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**Not sure where that one came from... or if I'm satisfied with the ending, but I wanted to finish it and couldn't come up with anything else. Oh well.. ^^**

**I might turn this into a story, but I only have a _very_vague idea for that... so, yeah.. **

**Review please :)**


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